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My Pixel just died I am going to get a pinephone to replace it. What has anyone else's experience with a PinePhone been like? EDIT: If the PinePhone isn't a go

My Pixel just died I am going to get a pinephone to replace it. What has anyone else's experience with a PinePhone been like? EDIT: If the PinePhone isn't a good choice is there another good more FOSSy phone I can turn to? I am sick of Google, and I have neither the inclination nor funds to join the apple ecosystem, anything else I could do?

ydlr 5y ago
It can be fun to play with, but if you need a telephone, you should look elsewhere. It is a coin flip whether an incoming call or SMS will be recieved.
mjard 5y ago
Slow, short battery life, buggy. You don't want this for your daily driver. Now, it is a fun toy to play with. PostmarketOS with SXMO is an interesting experiment and I love the idea of a pocketable linux computer with a modem. It could potentially even be a phone if people stop trying to treat it like a feature phone and accept that you are running on limited hardware and software needs to be written as such.
- notswiley2 5y ago
  I daily drive it. >Slow But it's fast enough. Since you can use overlapping WMs you're not stuck staring at loading screens and can use other apps while you're waiting with no time spent switching. Android is heavy. It's way worse than people realize. >Short battery life You can fix this by adding an extra run level that uses RTCWake to sleep the phone when it's "locked" without missing notifications. I think a number of distros have added this. Also you can swap out batteries unlike nearly every other phone. They even sell a charger. I have three that I cycle through. >Buggy IME it's better than Android now. EDIT: Well, let me clarify this. You will have to tolerate some bugs, the EG-25 modem firmware is particularly bad. I use VOIP for MMS and voice because I don't trust the modem to behave. Everything else (the stuff the community actually controls) is better than Android though in my opinion.
  - speedcoder 5y ago
    Does it support 5G?
    - kop316 5y ago
      It does not.
      - speedcoder 5y ago
        My 3G phone will soon be obsolete as 3G is being phased out in the U.S. in favor if 5G. What non-apple non-google 5G options exist?
        kop316 5y ago
        To my knowledge, none. But I don't think 4G is going away anytime soon to be honest.
    - hffftz 5y ago
  - itronitron 5y ago
    >> You can fix this by adding an extra run level that uses RTCWake to sleep the phone when it's "locked" without missing notifications. This should be part of the default configuration, because the battery life is way too short. Swapping batteries isn't a workable option for a daily driver, and besides the extra batteries have been out of stock for over a month.
  - magicjosh 5y ago
    Congratulations! From having purchased a Pinephone myself and read the forums, you are probably one of a dozen people in the world able to do this. Pinephone is not yet intended or ready as a daily driver for regular users.
  - Bancakes 5y ago
    Fast enough? Can it scroll the contacts list at 60 fps? Can it run youtube with hardware acceleration?
kop316 5y ago
I have been using the OG Pinephone full time for a month in the US (Mobian Phosh). I am able to use VoLTE Calls, SMS, MMS, Visual Voicemail (so all of the basic feature phone stuff works). It is very very slow however. Firefox takes 40 (EDIT: ok more like 15-20) seconds to load, and I don't even bother to load heavy resource sites without uMatrix. Also, battery life is not great. Screen on time is 3-4 hours, and standby time is approximately 12 hours.
- prox 5y ago
  So as a phone it works great? I just want a device that calls, and having a bit of fun with Linux is a plus for me. I wonder if they can’t use a raspberry pi like base, since in the Pi3-4 loading Firefox is quicker by a margin.
  - kop316 5y ago
    > So as a phone it works great? So far for me it has yeah. I really don't know enough about how well it works outside of the US (but many of the devs seem to be in Europe, so I imagine it works well there?) For me the biggest thing that hurts is battery life, but normally I am in areas where I can just plug it in, so it isn't a big issue. If I am out and about for a day, I just carry around a battery pack (or a spare battery). > I wonder if they can’t use a raspberry pi like base, since in the Pi3-4 loading Firefox is quicker by a margin. You could probably get an EG-25 USB modem and play around with it, but AFAIK no one is doing that, so you'd be largely on your own.
    - notswiley2 5y ago
      >You could probably get an EG-25 USB modem and play around with it, but AFAIK no one is doing that, so you'd be largely on your own. I think a lot of the devs actually do this.
      - kop316 5y ago
        AFAIK most devs cross-compile on a beefy machine then debug in the Pinephone (or have some fancy configuration to do it automatically). I personally develop/compile/debug all on phone (but I know I am an outlier in that regard).
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
Do not use as a daily driver. It is a useful toy, but requires massive amounts of more development
opan 5y ago
Just get something with LineageOS support and then flash that without gapps. That's the currently-usable solution. I do have a PinePhone and hope it continues to improve also. Maybe even find something supported by both LineageOS and postmarketOS, like the OnePlus 6. That'll get you closer to something like a PinePhone in the same device if you so desire it.
- ranger_danger 5y ago
  LineageOS is even less secure than stock because it does not support verified boot.
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    And most of the distros you will run on the PinePhone (Pro) will be even less secure than LineageOS.
wlarro 5y ago
The PinePhone doesn't have the performance, battery life, or application ecosystem to be a primary phone. LineageOS or one of the other de-googled Android distributions are worth checking out.
goffi 5y ago
> If the PinePhone isn't a good choice is there another good more FOSSy phone I can turn to? I am sick of Google, and I have neither the inclination nor funds to join the apple ecosystem, anything else I could do? Maybe have a look at the Fairphone, the last iteration seems neat, and it's compatible with several FOSS OSes (at least Android based ones, but I think other too). Best is to use a second hand/refurbished phone: better for the planet, the price, and you can choose carefully a model compatible with the FOSS OS you would like to have. PinePhone (Pro) is not (yet?) good as a daily driver, but it's a great platform if you want to develop for various OSes (booting on a new OS is as easy as switching SD card). With the new keyboard accessory, it's a great super small and portable computer, and the community is very active.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  Is the fairphone available in the US? I would have bought the FP3 in a heartbeat if it was available in the US in the summer of 2020.
loser777 5y ago
I got a "beta edition" PinePhone circa Sept. 2021 that wouldn't run without locking up or resetting for more than a minute at a time. Tried a bunch of images with different memory frequency settings but no dice. Mine was probably just a dud but it was still an expensive paperweight.
louloulou 5y ago
Replace it with.. a Pixel. https://grapheneos.org/releases https://grapheneos.org/releases https://calyxos.org/install/ https://calyxos.org/install/
mpol 5y ago
> is there another good more FOSSy phone I can turn to? I have been using Sailfish OS from Jolla since 2014 as daily driver and only phone. It is usable as a daily driver but you can notice it doesn't have the billions of development time poured into it like Google and Apple do. It is not 100% open source, but it is real lInux with systemd, wayland, ssh as root, etcetera. I am using it now on a Sony Xperia XA2 that I bought second hand 2 years ago for 110 Euro, together with 50 Euro for Android App Support it works fine for my usecase. Before that I used the original Jolla 1 for 5 years. That device had support from Jolla from 2013 untill 2020, 7 years in total. Choosing a phone for Sailfish today, I probably would end up with a Sony Xperia 10 or Sony Xperia 10 II.
- niemenmaa 5y ago
  Missed your post before commenting my own recommendation below, but definitely second this!
SkyMarshal 5y ago
> EDIT: If the PinePhone isn't a good choice is there another good more FOSSy phone I can turn to? There are only a few [1][2]. Pine and Purism seem to be the two main ones, in the US at least. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_phones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_pho... [2]:https://itsfoss.com/open-source-alternatives-android/ https://itsfoss.com/open-source-alternatives-android/
niemenmaa 5y ago
Recommend checking out the SailfishOS[0] by Jolla. I have daily driven it on Xperia XA2 and XA10 II and it works "well enough" and is mostly open [1]. I have bought the OS so the phone has Android app support. This review resembles my experiences well [2]. E: I noticed that currently purchasing SailfishOS from outside ofl Europe is "prohibited" according to the purchase page. That is a bummer for non-europeans. [0] https://sailfishos.org/ https://sailfishos.org/ [1] https://sailfishos.org/info/ https://sailfishos.org/info/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbYPoiZh8wg&t=150 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbYPoiZh8wg&t=150
the_one_jay 5y ago
I really like calyxos on the pixel 5a
magicjosh 5y ago
I bought a Pinephone a few months ago. It is not ready for a daily driver. It's a dev project still. An important, crucial project, but still in dev. Others have said this as well so will end my comment here.

ydlr 5y ago

It can be fun to play with, but if you need a telephone, you should look elsewhere. It is a coin flip whether an incoming call or SMS will be recieved.

mjard 5y ago

Slow, short battery life, buggy. You don't want this for your daily driver. Now, it is a fun toy to play with. PostmarketOS with SXMO is an interesting experiment and I love the idea of a pocketable linux computer with a modem. It could potentially even be a phone if people stop trying to treat it like a feature phone and accept that you are running on limited hardware and software needs to be written as such.

notswiley2 5y ago
I daily drive it. >Slow But it's fast enough. Since you can use overlapping WMs you're not stuck staring at loading screens and can use other apps while you're waiting with no time spent switching. Android is heavy. It's way worse than people realize. >Short battery life You can fix this by adding an extra run level that uses RTCWake to sleep the phone when it's "locked" without missing notifications. I think a number of distros have added this. Also you can swap out batteries unlike nearly every other phone. They even sell a charger. I have three that I cycle through. >Buggy IME it's better than Android now. EDIT: Well, let me clarify this. You will have to tolerate some bugs, the EG-25 modem firmware is particularly bad. I use VOIP for MMS and voice because I don't trust the modem to behave. Everything else (the stuff the community actually controls) is better than Android though in my opinion.
- speedcoder 5y ago
  Does it support 5G?
  - kop316 5y ago
    It does not.
    - speedcoder 5y ago
      My 3G phone will soon be obsolete as 3G is being phased out in the U.S. in favor if 5G. What non-apple non-google 5G options exist?
      - kop316 5y ago
        To my knowledge, none. But I don't think 4G is going away anytime soon to be honest.
  - hffftz 5y ago
- itronitron 5y ago
  >> You can fix this by adding an extra run level that uses RTCWake to sleep the phone when it's "locked" without missing notifications. This should be part of the default configuration, because the battery life is way too short. Swapping batteries isn't a workable option for a daily driver, and besides the extra batteries have been out of stock for over a month.
- magicjosh 5y ago
  Congratulations! From having purchased a Pinephone myself and read the forums, you are probably one of a dozen people in the world able to do this. Pinephone is not yet intended or ready as a daily driver for regular users.
- Bancakes 5y ago
  Fast enough? Can it scroll the contacts list at 60 fps? Can it run youtube with hardware acceleration?

kop316 5y ago

I have been using the OG Pinephone full time for a month in the US (Mobian Phosh). I am able to use VoLTE Calls, SMS, MMS, Visual Voicemail (so all of the basic feature phone stuff works). It is very very slow however. Firefox takes 40 (EDIT: ok more like 15-20) seconds to load, and I don't even bother to load heavy resource sites without uMatrix. Also, battery life is not great. Screen on time is 3-4 hours, and standby time is approximately 12 hours.

prox 5y ago
So as a phone it works great? I just want a device that calls, and having a bit of fun with Linux is a plus for me. I wonder if they can’t use a raspberry pi like base, since in the Pi3-4 loading Firefox is quicker by a margin.
- kop316 5y ago
  > So as a phone it works great? So far for me it has yeah. I really don't know enough about how well it works outside of the US (but many of the devs seem to be in Europe, so I imagine it works well there?) For me the biggest thing that hurts is battery life, but normally I am in areas where I can just plug it in, so it isn't a big issue. If I am out and about for a day, I just carry around a battery pack (or a spare battery). > I wonder if they can’t use a raspberry pi like base, since in the Pi3-4 loading Firefox is quicker by a margin. You could probably get an EG-25 USB modem and play around with it, but AFAIK no one is doing that, so you'd be largely on your own.
  - notswiley2 5y ago
    >You could probably get an EG-25 USB modem and play around with it, but AFAIK no one is doing that, so you'd be largely on your own. I think a lot of the devs actually do this.
    - kop316 5y ago
      AFAIK most devs cross-compile on a beefy machine then debug in the Pinephone (or have some fancy configuration to do it automatically). I personally develop/compile/debug all on phone (but I know I am an outlier in that regard).

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

Do not use as a daily driver. It is a useful toy, but requires massive amounts of more development

opan 5y ago

Just get something with LineageOS support and then flash that without gapps. That's the currently-usable solution. I do have a PinePhone and hope it continues to improve also. Maybe even find something supported by both LineageOS and postmarketOS, like the OnePlus 6. That'll get you closer to something like a PinePhone in the same device if you so desire it.

ranger_danger 5y ago
LineageOS is even less secure than stock because it does not support verified boot.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  And most of the distros you will run on the PinePhone (Pro) will be even less secure than LineageOS.

wlarro 5y ago

The PinePhone doesn't have the performance, battery life, or application ecosystem to be a primary phone. LineageOS or one of the other de-googled Android distributions are worth checking out.

goffi 5y ago

> If the PinePhone isn't a good choice is there another good more FOSSy phone I can turn to? I am sick of Google, and I have neither the inclination nor funds to join the apple ecosystem, anything else I could do? Maybe have a look at the Fairphone, the last iteration seems neat, and it's compatible with several FOSS OSes (at least Android based ones, but I think other too). Best is to use a second hand/refurbished phone: better for the planet, the price, and you can choose carefully a model compatible with the FOSS OS you would like to have. PinePhone (Pro) is not (yet?) good as a daily driver, but it's a great platform if you want to develop for various OSes (booting on a new OS is as easy as switching SD card). With the new keyboard accessory, it's a great super small and portable computer, and the community is very active.

CameronNemo 5y ago
Is the fairphone available in the US? I would have bought the FP3 in a heartbeat if it was available in the US in the summer of 2020.

loser777 5y ago

I got a "beta edition" PinePhone circa Sept. 2021 that wouldn't run without locking up or resetting for more than a minute at a time. Tried a bunch of images with different memory frequency settings but no dice. Mine was probably just a dud but it was still an expensive paperweight.

louloulou 5y ago

Replace it with.. a Pixel. https://grapheneos.org/releases https://grapheneos.org/releases https://calyxos.org/install/ https://calyxos.org/install/

mpol 5y ago

> is there another good more FOSSy phone I can turn to? I have been using Sailfish OS from Jolla since 2014 as daily driver and only phone. It is usable as a daily driver but you can notice it doesn't have the billions of development time poured into it like Google and Apple do. It is not 100% open source, but it is real lInux with systemd, wayland, ssh as root, etcetera. I am using it now on a Sony Xperia XA2 that I bought second hand 2 years ago for 110 Euro, together with 50 Euro for Android App Support it works fine for my usecase. Before that I used the original Jolla 1 for 5 years. That device had support from Jolla from 2013 untill 2020, 7 years in total. Choosing a phone for Sailfish today, I probably would end up with a Sony Xperia 10 or Sony Xperia 10 II.

niemenmaa 5y ago
Missed your post before commenting my own recommendation below, but definitely second this!

SkyMarshal 5y ago

> EDIT: If the PinePhone isn't a good choice is there another good more FOSSy phone I can turn to? There are only a few [1][2]. Pine and Purism seem to be the two main ones, in the US at least. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_phones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_pho... [2]:https://itsfoss.com/open-source-alternatives-android/ https://itsfoss.com/open-source-alternatives-android/

niemenmaa 5y ago

Recommend checking out the SailfishOS[0] by Jolla. I have daily driven it on Xperia XA2 and XA10 II and it works "well enough" and is mostly open [1]. I have bought the OS so the phone has Android app support. This review resembles my experiences well [2]. E: I noticed that currently purchasing SailfishOS from outside ofl Europe is "prohibited" according to the purchase page. That is a bummer for non-europeans. [0] https://sailfishos.org/ https://sailfishos.org/ [1] https://sailfishos.org/info/ https://sailfishos.org/info/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbYPoiZh8wg&t=150 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbYPoiZh8wg&t=150

the_one_jay 5y ago

I really like calyxos on the pixel 5a

magicjosh 5y ago

I bought a Pinephone a few months ago. It is not ready for a daily driver. It's a dev project still. An important, crucial project, but still in dev. Others have said this as well so will end my comment here.